Ireland edges ever closer to becoming one of the world’s top 10 business locations
The Republic of Ireland has again edged ever closer to becoming one of the world’s top 10 highest-ranked business locations, moving up four places to 13th place in the latest edition of the annual World Bank Doing Business report.
The latest report, Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency, examines the compliance burden on entrepreneurs in 189 jurisdictions worldwide. Russell Bedford member firms have contributed to each of the report’s Paying Taxes surveys since 2009, contributing data on tax regulation, recent reforms, and the real costs of tax compliance. Responding to criticism of its methodology in recent years, the 2015 edition reflects a number of changes, no longer ranking countries’ performance solely on their aggregate scores in various categories, but also in terms of their ‘distance to frontier’, reflecting each country’s progress in moving towards accepted norms of international best practice.
On this basis, achieving a score of 80% in terms of the reforms necessary to deliver the ideal regulatory framework, Ireland would appear, again, to have one of the world’s best environments for business, maintaining the same ranking, 13th place. While the country’s performance on tax reform is less good, reflecting an increase in the total rate of profit tax from 11.9% to 12.4%, it does, nonetheless, remain the sixth most favourable tax environment in the world.
Tony Carey, managing partner of Russell Bedford member firm Cooney Carey, commented: “It is deeply gratifying to see the Republic of Ireland where it belongs, among the world’s leading business environments. Any increase in business taxation is always a regressive step but, taken in the context of the greater tax burdens many of our European peers are having to impose, it is clear that Ireland remains one of the most attractive investment locations in the world.”